On loan?
Bluemoon goes into Meltdown
- Thread starter Logan!
- Start date
3 days on general sale to sell out a cup final! Clearly demonstrates the lack of supporters.
No, permanent transfer, surprisingly enough.
I'm a fan of Pep but let's be fair. He got Xavi, Iniesta and Lionel fecking Messi. It wasn't a tall order to improve on 67 points.
A point that's been covered a dozen times in the past, not just by me but by various posters in the numerous threads on here about our matchday attendances. We have about 40-45,000 die-hard fans who go to every home game and would be willing to shell out for a cup final, the rest come and go. Doesn't really matter whether we sell out the cup final or not, we're still in one.
so were they the greatest team ever before Pep took over then, or not?
sure but all three improved massively after he took over, especially Xavi who as I recall it was nothing special for a a few years after the early hype died down
It's true Xavi went to a new level when he came but he had just displayed that new level before Pep anyway at Euro 2008 iirc
Fair enough, you're right. I'm not advocating Pep as the greatest ever or anything, that is SAF for me.
But I do find it strange when people say he took over the greatest team ever.
Sure he had things which working in his favour with Messi being the obvious one, but he made a lot of great things happen all at once too. 7/8 players all converging to world class status at the exact same moment isn't a lucky coincidence.
How many times do we see managers step into a big club and wilt? Happens all the time. Yet Pep going into Barca, Bayern and City and performing well is somehow used as a black mark against his name.
Don't think you read the Tweet properly. The Tweet was funny as it revealed that you have put Cup Final tickets on general sale. The date of the Tweet has no relevance.
Your point on Chelsea stands. The Blues i work with say there are regularly away fans in the home stands at the Etihad. This is why i presumed Chelsea would be buying up your unused tickets. As it is many Chelsea fans have had enough of Sarri so are staying away.
The team was young and still starting out that whole starting 11 was fantastic. Best midfield partnership of maybe all time one of the top 2 players of all time the all time leading Spain goal scorer in villa the season before that one do the greatest players of his generation in Henry. That team was still molding together. Did pep have a part ? Ya sure like I said he is a great coach but that team was too good not to succeed. Similar example the golden state warriors and Steve Kerr that team can coach themselves they are that good. Every other coach who coached Barca had success as well right after because the team was that good Messi best year was in 2013 where he scored 91 goals in a calendar year pep was not their...
And despite Messi's insane output, they didn't win the CL that year.
In fact they won it 2 out of 4 years under Pep (2 others were semi finals losing to the eventual winners) and in 6 seasons after that, they've won it once with 1 semi-final appearance.
Anyway, this is like the Messi v Ronaldo debate. Facing Pep's Barca was a daunting task, in a way that goes beyond result numbers.
Inter did it with the best defensive performance I've ever seen. Chelsea somehow hung in there and rode their luck massively, with Messi missing a pen and Cesc missing an open goal. No other European opponent managed it.
Real were repeatedly dominated, twice by historic margins,,and won only twice in those 4 years (across La Liga, CdR, and CL).
From 2006-08, Barca had a 0-2-3 record in Clasicos.
Under Pep, it was 8-1-2.
After Pep, it has been 7-3-5.
[not counting super cup, which would actually make the stats even better for Pep, and counting 2-legged matches as 1 result]
You forgot to mention he has never won the CL again since he left that Barca team. In contrary though Barca DID win a CL without pep.
Yes i thought it was useful to look at other factors but of course that's not worth responding to at all.
I’d say c. 35,000-40,000 ‘guaranteed’ supporters, 5,000 floaters and then the away fans for me. Newcastle level support.
I mean even West Ham draws more.
Enjoy it. It doesn’t matter if you get 5 fans to your games you can still attract top players.
This is basically my point. Doesn't matter if our entire side of Wembley is completely empty, we'll still be in the final.
I kind of is though. Harrison/SAF nurtured the class of 92 into what they became but they had to have it "in them" in the first place to achieve the levels they did which meant a huge slice of luck was involved too.
Some luck for sure, but how much of their success was down to SAF? He played a massive part. How many other managers would've carved up a top team and given the youngsters a chance like he did?
Top managers get top young talents who never make it all the time. Getting a group to all make it to world class status in one moment is a momental task that involved a lot more than luck.
100% agree mate. Its just the fact we had that many players out of one academy group who even had the potential to go on to that level was and still is unprecedented.
Having the vision, ability and, to be frank balls to rip up that team and trust kids was zero to do with luck though.
You have to understand that Guardiola is a mad perfectionist who wants his team to play the absolute best football in the world. And you can't do that without a great team to begin with. You can make a Porto, an Inter or an Atletico of Simeone win without having a truly fantastic squad, but you can not make them win playing truly fantastic football, at least not the crazily high level that Guardiola wants from his players.
Of course but in my opinion you have to be able to manage every team to it's best if you want to be a top tier manager.
A good mechanic can get a higher performance out of a Ferrari but top mechanics transform a Toyota Corolla into a race winning car. That's how I see it
All hail the Lord Pepus, saviour of football.
Just out of interest, which managers don’t want to play the best football in the world?
I'm sorry guys, I'm all for having a laugh at City's expense, but this has nothing to do with them.
Indeed. No discussion of the jailing of the founder of City Watch in this thread please.
This is his Second Coming. He also invented football.
Nothing new every time.
Guardiola's "problem" as a manager is that he is not pragmatic enough, even when he needs to. He wants his teams to play football in the level of that Barcelona that he coached or at least as close as possible. Players said that his training is extremely intense, perfectionist and even odd in some aspects, he is a disciple of Cruyff and uses methods such as the rondo, created by Cruyff, to developed the player's ability to pass and think fast in tight spaces as much as possible. I recommend this video.
youtu.be/BTJYFlOzu7k
Anyway, my point is that there is a difference between great football and ultra mega top tier football like his Barcelona at its best, specially with all that intricate and tight offensive passing. You can make a Toyota Corolla, his City team, a Ferrari, in the best City matches of last season. But you can't make a Palio into a Ferrari. Atletico, Inter and Porto are Palios. Using tight defenses and strong tactical discipline is how Mourinho and Simeone were able to win, not by playing fantastic football. Guardiola remembers me of the great Telê Santana, famous coach here in Brazil, specially for Brazil 82 and São Paulo 1991-1994. Telê wanted his teams to always attack no matter what, even if the game was already being won 5-0. Guardiola is the same, he is the great attacking coach of this generation
Forget about that. It seems that people when talk about Guardiola only have extremes. Either he is fraud or the God of football, responsible for everything that has happened in modern football since him. I consider him a great coach, the best now, but he is not anywhere close what you say too.
The year was 2012. In matter of goals, Messi's best season was 2011-2012 and Guardiola was the coach. He was not the coach only in the second half of the year 2012.
Also there is a user here who wrote that he could win everything with the Barcelona squad of 2008-2009. Do I need to explain how wrong is that? Besides, it was not only that they won, it was the fantastic football that they played. That team comes only once in a lifetime, a huge series of factors combined to make that Barcelona as fantastic as they were, without even one of these factors, they would not have reached those crazy levels of football. Guardiola was one of the factors, anyone who bothers looking deeply about that team development will know that. Dismissing Guardiola as overrated for having a huge amount of fantastic players at his disposal is not valid at all when he had a crucial in building possibly the greatest team ever. If I was going to use the same arguments that are used to dismiss Guardiola here, then Rinus Michels was massively overrated too. I consider Rinus Michels the greatest coach ever, and I am not pretending that Guardiola did any tactical revolution close to what Michels did, but many of the criticisms made against Guardiola fit perfectly against Rinus Michels too if we are coherent, and I will explain below why.
Rinus Michels coached nothing less than one of the greatest generations of footballers in history of football and had perhaps the best European player ever at his disposal in Johan Cruyff. While Rinus Michels nurtured that generation and helped them achieve their maximum potential, winning Ajax their first European title, Stefan Kovacs coached Ajax right in the next seasons and won more two European titles. Meanwhile, Rinus Michels was at Barcelona and was not able to win anything at all in his first two seasons at the club. Only when Cruyff quit Ajax and came to Barcelona in the 73-74 season, he would be able to win La Liga. Rinus Michele made a fantastic work with the Holland national team during the World Cup. Before he coached them, Holland was struggling to play good/great football. But I guess it does not matter, since that Holland was perhaps the second best team in history of World Cup and the greatest generation of Holland'S history...
After that, Rinus Michels' only notable achievement was winning the Euro 1988 for Holland, with another fantastic generation with Van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard Koeman...
Also, if Guardiola is overrated, then Arrigo Sacchi is even more overrated too. Arrigo Sacchi in many ways perfected the system of Holland 1974 and revolutionized football at the time. His Milan played wonderful attacking football that wowed everyone at the time. His Milan is still considered one of the greatest teams ever. Yet, he had at his disposal the best squad of the world, with players like Van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard, Baresi, Maldini and Donadoni. He was only able to win Serie A once. And he did nothing more noteworthy after he left Milan, only collecting bad and often truly embarrassing works after Milan. If anything, Guardiola post-Barcelona is already miles above Sacchi post-Milan. Yet, Sacchi is still considered one of the best coaches of all time.
Can you all see my point?
Popcorn ready?
Get the popcorn out lads.
My body is ready 
That was my favourite Aguerooooo moment
